Thank you, i spent 2 years researching every facet of my arrangements in the Philippines, and even after all that, i still missed the boat regarding leasing land that is not titled. and this is why you must have a very clever Lawyer working with you, and one who is local to the region that you are investing in, as many regions are very different to each other in many aspects, but the common law states clearly that a foreigner can only buy a condo in a building wher 60% or more are owned by Filipino citizens, they can live in it themselves, or rent it out.Originally Posted by fred
Land, house, business ownership is impossible, you can do it thru a Corporation (this is very complex to set up and mostly it will be doomed to fail) or thru a Lawyer (got to find one you trust) or a Filipino national (wife or otherwise) but in any case, you will never own any percentage of those properties, so unless you trust those in a corporation, your Lawyer or Filipino national (wife etc) DO NOT buy land, a house, or a business.
Leasing is by far the bet option as far as a house, land or a business goes, and if you are not married to a Filipino, and want to get into an existing business, offer the owner a lease for a set period of time, making sure that you have had your lawyer go thru every bit of paperwork and financial documents, and structure the lease in such a way that you know you are going to be making money all the time, because if you fail, you must still pay out the lease on the business to the owner.
In my case with the 4 eateries/cafe's that i set up, they were new businesses, which i was not allowed to own myself, so i set the businesses up and they are registered to the managers who operate them, and we initially split the profits 60% me and 40% them for the first 12 months, this was done so that i could recover most of my setup costs, and after that, it reverted to 50/50 which allowed them to own a business without the need to pay for the cost of setting them up, a win/win scenario for them and for me, and if i ever want to walk away, the manager takes over and i get nothing, and we look after the employees as well.
As far as the DENR goes, things changed dramatically after the closure of Boracay in mid 2018, and they set about making massive changes to all high volume tourist regions, including El Nido in Palawan Island, which at the same time that Boracay was closed, also had major issues with sewer and grey water pollution, which had been getting worse for many years.
El Nido is one of the biggest tourism disasters of all time in my opinion, they allowed the town to build concrete hotels and shops along the beachfront, in many cases only 10 metres from the high tide water mark, they were finally doomed for demolition with new buildings requiring a 25 or 30 metre setback to the high tide mark, but even as of now, nothing has been done, every building remains in place, some were burnt down (deliberately) and ironically many building owner along the beach front near the town centre are actually adding onto their building, or doing renovations, which i found astounding when i was there in August last year.
The places where i have chosen to set up my cottages are between 30 and 60 minutes by boat away from crowded tourist locations, which allow the tourists to reach my places quite easily from those tourist towns (just outside Port Barton and up at Diapila Bay in Palawan are 2 locations that i have already set up)
Just to setup a tourist cottage business requires a lot of paper work, and then you have the food/health side of it which is even worse, but in some locations nobody seems to care, you can still pay a bribe and have them turn a blind eye, however i set my places up according to every single rule, and then some, as i don't ever want to risk the health of any tourist that stays in any of my cottages.
Quote Reply